Jlorcij.'itcr ||oiin(g f rt|c |nrititiiti; o|i liulufitrial M\m<{. 

.J J J J J J 



^ ^^"^MMENCEMENT 



Julv 30, 1873, 



C O M M E N C E M E ^- T ADDRESS 

BY 

HON. K.MOIIY WASIIHL'KN, LL.D., 

OF CAMBRIDGE. 

ADDRESS OP^ THE TRISTEES 

BY 

REV. SKTH SAVEETSKK, 1). I)., 

OF WORCESTER. 



Privately Printed by Pennission. 



worcester : 
Tyler & Sea<;rave, Printers, 442 Main Stkkkt, 

Opposite the ("itv Hall. 

1873. ■ 



/ 

lorc^jitcr tountu mt Institute of Industrial %(m\^. 



COMMENCEMENT, 

July 30, 1873. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS 
Br 

HON, EMORY WASHBURN, LL.D., 



OF CAMBRIDGE. 



ADDRESS OF THE TRUSTEES 



\ REV. SETH SWEETSER, D.D., 



OF WORCESTER* 



Privately Printed by Permission, 



WORCESTER : 

TtLER & Seagrave, Printers, 442 Main Street, 

Opposite the City Hall. 
1873. 



^v 



41743 



^.^k^^'- 




Commencement Addresses, 

Jialy 30, 1873. 



In introducing the Addresses, Mr. Salisbury, the President, said : 

Will you ])erinit me to bring to notice an interesting circumstance. 
JoHX BoYNTON, E:SQ., the original founder of this Institute, died before 
these Walls were erected. Hon. Ichabod Washburn, the founder of the 
Mechanical Department, died on August 30, 1868, several months before 
his department w^as in active operation. He said he desired and hoped to 
forge the first piece of iron for the shop, but he was not permitted. We 
rejoice tliat with the death of these honored benefactors, their sentiments 
and the thoughts and reasonings which are the framework of the Institute 
did not die. They still live, not only in the well-considered documents of 
gift, but also in the persons of the confidential counsellors whose judg- 
ment was paramount in determining the scope and system of the enter- 
prise, and they have added more valuable labor as Trustees in the first 
years. These -wise counsellors are with us to-day, and they will address 
you. 

ADDRESS OF HON. EMOEY WASHBURN. 



The occasion furnishes me the subject of my 
remarlcs. In taking part in the closing exercises 
of an academic year of a school of practical sci- 
ence, I hardly feel at liberty to go outside of the 
claims of popular education, as we have seen it 
Illustrated here today. In the half hour to which 
I am limited, not only must I confine myself to 
a single topic, but even of that I must omit 
much that would suggest itself as proper for the 
occasion. I Avill not stop, when speaking to a 
Massachusetts audience, to show that, for a 
young man starting in life, education is an 
indispensable condition of success. Physical 
energy, robust health, muscular activity are not 
enough. He must be taught how to use these; 
he must learn the relation there is between the 
functions of the brain and those of the body; 
be must be able to exemplify the operations of 
the will and the judgment in applying the forces 
at his command, in the way of skill, in achiev- 
ing results, or he will be little better than the 



savage who wastes the superabundance of his 
strength in a vain conflict with the forces of 
nature. 

The term education does not necessarily im- 
ply the study of books nor the discipline of a 
school. Men are often educated, their powers 
developed and their judgment disciplined by 
the circumstances by which they are sur- 
rounded. There is a class of self-made men in 
whom that invaluable quality which we call 
"mother wit" has been drawn out by the force 
of necessity, and who, in the ordinary affairs 
of life, seem to act by a kind of intuitive per- 
ception of what others acquire only by diligence 
and study. But these are exceptional cases, 
and while we yield all reverence to that highest 
quality in education— common sense— it is to 
the training and dicipline of schools that we are 
to look mainly for the processes by which 
young men are to be fitted for the duties and 
responsibilities of citizens, and the privileges 



and enjoyments of intelligent and cultivated 
society. 

We start, then, with what I will assume as a 
conceded fact, that taking men as they rise, if 
we would educate them, if we would sti-engthen 
and invigorate their moral and intellectual 
faculties, if we would fit them for lives of use- 
fulness and honor, we must have schools. 

It is not, however, of schools in the abstract 
that I propose to speak. A school that is un- 
suited to the spirit of the age, to the condition 
of society and to the educational wants which 
are to be supplied to individuals in the commu- 
nity, is not only useless, but worse than useless, 
by wasting the time of the pupil and cheating 
him out of what he most needs. Some of us 
are old enough to remember a class of "board- 
ing schools," as they were called, which were 
taught in many of our country villages for the 
benefit of young ladies, in which all that was 
desirable to know could be acquired in a quar- 
ter or two of a year at a surprisingly cheap rate, 
I have before me a half dozen advertisements, 
copied from the Worcester papers of the day, 
one of which wiU serve to illustrate the condi- 
tion of female education in our own county as 
late as 1821, the date of the advertisement, 
which, with your permission, I will read, "Miss 
W. has been engaged to open a school for the in- 
struction of young ladies and misses the ensuing 
season," etc., "in addition to the several branch- 
es usually taught in boarding schools. Miss W. 
will give lessons in intellectual and moral phi- 
losophy, chemistry,natural philosophy, astrono- 
my, projecting and calculating eclipses, etc., 
etc. Particular attention will be paid to man- 
ners and morals. Tuition in co7nmon branches, 
$2.50; in the higher branches, $3.00." When we 
remember that all these were to be taught by a 
single instructor, in a single quarter of a year, 
we detect the ridiculous nature of the whole 
thing, and hardly need to be told that such 
schools are useless, if they fail to do positive 
harm, whether they help to spoil one sex or the 
other. 

Schools, I repeat, should be suited to the 
genius of the people for whom they are de- 
signed. And this depends, often, upon the gov- 
ernment under which they live, the general 
diffusion of knowledge, and the prevailing 
habits of political and intellectual thoughts by 
which they are influenced. Those, therefore, 
who have been so anxious to shape our schools 
and colleges upon the model of those of Prussia, 
have overlooked the radical difference tliere is 
between the currents of Yankee and German 
thought which underlie the whole system of 
school instruction in these two countries. If 



we ask ourselves in what respect the present 
age is more distinguished than any other, from 
the ages which have preceded it, to the end that 
we may judge whether any change is desirable 
in the character of our schools, we shall find it 
eminently an age of fact instead of speculation, 
of practical utility in action instead of wasting 
its energies upon metaphysical subtleties, or in 
combatting errors in faith or heresies in doc- 
trine. It is an age, moreover, when a man is 
allowed to vindicate his personal claim to the 
dignity of manhood, unawed by any false 
reverence for title and arbitrary rank, and the 
qualities of mind and heart are made the test of 
merit, rather than the accident of birth. A 
revolution tending to this point has been going 
on in the mother country for the last two cen- 
turies, with an accelerated movement as it ad- 
vances, though if has, even yet, hardly pene- 
trated the lower strata of her social organiza- 
tion. The peerage has been compelled to open 
its doors to the craftsman and man of affairs. 
Brain has put in its claim to stand up by 
the side of birth. The son of a barber becomes 
the lord chief justice of England, and the inven- 
tor of the spinning jenny is decorated with the 
insignia of knighthood by the hand of royalty. 
Of that noble stock of good and great men with 
whom this revolution began, the fathers of N'ew 
England were an honored and worthy offshoot, 
and brought with them the courage, the sagacity 
and religious ti'utli which made the name of 
Puritan a tower of strength during the English 
commonwealth. In many things they excelled 
the compatriots they had left behind them in 
;heir attempt to plant the germ of a future repub- 
lic. The experiment of their English brethren 
failed, for a season, at least, while their own not 
only sprung up into vigorous life, but today 
sends out its branches over a whole continent, 
under whose shelter the nations find repose and 
safety. If we ask how this was done— through 
what agency the elements of a fi-ee self-governed 
state were supplied and rendered effective— the 
answer would be, in no small degree, by the 
churches, the schools and tlie colleges they 
planted here in the wilderness. For much of 
this they had no other guide than their own in- 
tuition, Avhich, look at it as we may, seems even 
now to have been all but inspired. The idea 
of making education free, of opening the doors 
of the school house to the children of toil, 
and breaking down all distinction of birth, sex 
or color, while supplying, as a common heri- 
tage, the priceless boon of culture and knowl- 
edge, was an outgrowth of Puritanism, in its 
free action upon the soil of New England, of 
which the old world had never, till then, had 



5 



any conception. Our surprise, however, should 
not be so great that they founded a college and 
planted scliools, as that these should have 
proved so admirably adapted to the purposes of 
building up a Christian commonwealth, for 
which they had embarked in the perilous enter- 
prise of raising Christian homes in a wilderness 
which no foot but that of tlie savage had ever 
p?netrdtcd. With a political sagacity which 
characterized whatever policy they undertook, 
they sought to imbue the policy of the state 
with the spirit of a sound religious faith, and, to 
that end, they saw the necessity of providing a 
class of educated spiritual teachers to dispense 
to their children and those who should come 
among tliera the strong docti-ines of gospel truth 
under which tliey had tliemselves been reared. 
And we find them accordingly founding a col- 
li'g.3 and dedicating it, ^'C'lrlsto et Ecdesioi," 
while they yet had hardly found a shelter for 
tliemselves. 

Tlieirs was the type of the American college 
of today, which forms one of the essential ele- 
ments of our intellectual and political life. It 
wanted many of tlie qualities and capacities of 
the modern university, in the attainment of the 
higher department of scholarship and science, 
but it still continues to supply the essential 
want of a free republic, the vitalizing influence 
of a broad and liberal education. 

What I have said of the college is true also of 
the schools they founded. They were exactly 
adapted to build up and sustain a civil society 
based upon the personal merits and qualifica- 
tions of those who composed it. The idea of ar- 
tificial rank, where every man was expected to 
be the architect of his own fortune, would have 
been preposterous. The education they wanted 
was practical in its character, something they 
could turn to present account. It was not so 
much the number of subjects matter they 
taught, which gave these schools their charac- 
ter, as it was the extent to which they accus- 
tomed young men to think, to judge and to act 
for themselves when they come upon the stage 
of active life. 

Xot only did these fathers of New England 
get the start of the mother country in this re- 
Bpect, by more than two hundred years, but 
their scheme has served every generation in our 
own, since their daj^, and is, in substance, the 
same of which we are now so justly proud. Not 
one of the phases in the social or political con- 
dition of the people, through which our country 
has been passing, has superseded or rendered 
nugatory a single provision of that system of 
school education which was first planted here 
in Massachusetts. And after all we hear of 



progi-ess, the Bible in the school has not yet, 
thank God! been superseded as a text book of 
moral duty. 

When we look back upon the subjects taught 
in those schools, it maj'' seem to some a day of 
small things. But when tried by the then wants 
and capacities of their infant commonwealth, 
they will be found as adequate to the purposes 
for which they were intended, as our more com- 
plete system is to the ads'anced condition of the 
commonwealth of our day. They had no schools 
of science because, comparatively speaking, 
they had no sciences to be taught. Half the re- 
sults of science with which this age is familiar 
have been discovered and brought into use since 
those men went to their final reward; and so far 
as science in its relation to the practical and use- 
ful arts is concerned, i ts rise and progress is a 
part of the history of the present age. So much 
has been done through them to advance and im- 
prove the condition of the passing age, we are 
apt to forget the steps by which this has been 
accomplished. It has, indeed, demonsti-ated the 
necessity of somehow bringing the education of 
the young into greater harmony with a knowl- 
edge of the laws of science as they have become 
developed and established. But in an ignorance 
of how much the training of the common school 
helps to quicken and invigorate the capacity of 
the mind to acquire and make use of new know- 
ledge, the practical men of the old world have 
undertaken to supply the needed instruction in 
applied science, and the laws of mechanism in 
their adaptation to the wants of civilized life, by 
means of special and technical schools, by ex- 
tending to a few the means of acquiring a com- 
parative independence, while the masses are left 
to the same hopeless condition of ignorance to 
which labor has so long been subjected in 
Europe. The progress of the age, and the new 
wants which have been developed by the inven- 
tions in the arts and discoveries in science have 
given a new direction to the human mind, and 
supplied a new test, that of practical utility in 
determining the value of whatever is presented 
to us in the form of knowledge. Not so much 
how it will aid us in penetrating the profound 
depths of thought, or sohing those phenomena 
which make life itself a mystery, as how it will 
pay and how it will foot up in the matter of pro- 
fit or loss in the balance sheet of trade or busi- 
ness. 

It is for this reason that I have called the age 
a practical one. Nor was that of the men who 
founded these schools any the less so, because 
they did not embrace, in terms, schools of in- 
dustrial science. The need we have of those is 
the outgrowth of the later .age, and in no sense 



6 



implies that tlie teachings hitlierto maintained 
in tlie common schools are, in any respect, to be 
dispensed with hereafter. We must have them 
both to fill up and supply the necessary links of 
that chain that unites the primary school, where 
the child is first taught his letters, to the col- 
leges and the university, where the developed 
student learns how to master the laws of science, 
the teachings of philosophy, and the erudition 
of the scholar. But, I repeat, while consider- 
ing how this link has been supplied we ought 
not to lose thought of how recent the call for 
such a class of schools has been. With work- 
shops and manufactories around us on every 
hand, in which we see steam and water power 
animating,as it were,thehalf conscious machine 
that is patiently doing the bidding of a single 
will, fashioning, it may be, the shaft that is to 
move the complex wheels and pullies and coun- 
tershafts of some vast factory, and give em- 
ployment to its hundred hands, or drawing out, 
with more than human delicacy of touch and 
skill, a thread hardly less impalpable than the 
gossamer which the spider spins, we rarely 
stop to compare these operations with the slow 
hand-work with which our fathers were content 
to overcome the forces of nature, or to ask to 
whom we owe these new powers with which in- 
vention, ingenuity and skill have supplied us. 
Nor is it without surprise that we are told that 
we scarcely need go back beyond two or three 
generations to include them all. They have all 
had their origin since these free schools of Mas- 
sachusetts were put in operation. 

Newton himself, the father of modern science, 
died more than one hundred years after the 
planting of New England. It is not yet one 
hundred years since Watt took out his patent 
for the steam engine. Whitney invented his 
cotton gin in 179-1, and Slater's first cotton mill 
in Pawtucket, and the first in the country, was 
started in 1798. The first power loom in Amer- 
ica went into operation in 1814, and that crown- 
ing household blessing, the sewing machine, 
was invented by a Worcester county young 
man in 1846. Within these periods the whole 
industry of the old world, as well as the new, 
has undergone a radical change, both in the 
processes and results of production. Hundreds, 
yet alive, can remember the spinning wheel and 
the loom that once had a place in the domestic 
industry of every thrifty housewife in New Eng- 
land, and not a few are old enough to recall 
when these were first superseded, in this coun- 
ty, by the spinning power and the hand loom 
CI the factory operative, which I believe was in 
1814. Although in bringing about this change 
a large demand was made for the application of 



the laws of science, and the powers of invention 
were actively stimulated, it Avas chiefly confined 
to a few master minds, while such as wrought 
with these machines rarely troubled themselves 
with the philosophy which was involved in their 
construction or their use. Tliey learned what 
they knew of them as the apprentice learns his 
trade or art, by repeating the same process till 
he can do it skillfully. This is still ti-ue in 
many, if not all the English factories, in respect 
to the ordmary operatives there. One weaves 
the body of a shawl, another the fringe, and 
neither of them troubles himself to inquii'c how 
they are put together so as to make the entire 
article they see in use. 

The French and Germans seem to have antici- 
pated the English in bringing science to their aid 
in the acquisition of skill in the processes of com- 
position and manufacture, in which their opera- 
tives were engaged. The importance and feasi- 
bility of educating the operative classes led to 
the experiment of teaching a sufficient number 
of leading minds for their public works, their 
manufactories, and their machine shops, by 
means of technical and scientific sciiools. And 
they found that by indoctrinating them in the 
science of mechanism, of chemistry, of civil and 
mechanical enginsermg and kindred pursuits, 
they became not only more useful and profita- 
ble operatives, but more orderly, enlightened 
and intelligent citizens. They did this, how- 
ever, Avithout having i)rovided what we have 
akeady at our hands in our common schools, 
the means of bridgmg over, as it were, the 
gulf there is between the untaught masses, 
whether upon the farm or in the workshop, and 
the favored few who have been taught in their 
schools of technology. How far it is possible or 
even desirable to do this in these countries, if 
they are to retain their present forms of gov- 
ernment, involves an element of political science 
which is outside of my present purpose. If tried 
by our own national experience, it can no longer 
remain a question. Instead of education bidng 
a source of political danger, i t is the want of it 
that threatens our institutions in this flood of 
population that is poiu'ing in upon oiu* country - 
from the overstocked nations of Europe. | j 

In the meantime, industrial schools in our ' 
country are comparatively a recent want. It 
hardly goes back beyond the recollection of 
living witnesses, certainly if we confine the re- 
mark to our own county, for I still claim it as 
our county, with its largo and varied interests. 
Take for instance civil and mechanical engineer- 
ing. We always had a class of millwrights 
who, by tradition and experiment and a judi- 
cious use of patterns, become skiUful in con- 



sti'ucting ^'ist and saw mills. Bat when we 
hpgan to build mills for the raanufaciure of cot- 
ton and woolen cloths, a new want had to be 
provided for, and it was for a while supplied b}-- 
skill imported from abroad, till the genius and 
prolific inventions of our own artisans sur- 
jiassed and superseded the borrowed skill to 
which our manufactiu'crs had to resort. Our 
civil engineers had been taught how to construct 
bridges, to lay out turnpikes, though with little 
regard to the laws of gi-avitation or of comfort 
for man or beast, and to excavate canals. But 
when in January, 1827, a committee of the leg- 
islature reported in favor of the feasibility of a 
railroad from Boston to Albany, it was received 
with a shout of derision as something too ridic- 
ulous to be advanced by any one outside of a 
lunatic hospital. 

So with chemistry. The only text book to be 
had by a student in that science in our schools, 
unLil after I had left college, was a sizable octavo 
volume, which, for the encouragement of the 
contest now going on between the sexes, I ought 
to add was the production of a woman, and was 
expected to be mastered in a few months. The 
score and extent to which chemistry has al- 
ready reach'.d as a science, and the infinite forms 
in which it enters into the useful and practical 
arts, had no more been anticipated or compre- 
hended by the men of that day than the magni- 
tude of the moun*:ains and rivers of this contincmt 
was conceived of by Columbus, when he first 
caught sight of the Bahama Islands. 

I might pursue my illustration by a reference 
to other familiar facts in the matter of practical 
science, and show liow recent has been its ap- 
plication to the purposes for which it is now in 
daily use. Take the case of steam as applied to 
ocean navigation and foreign commerce. The 
pioneer ship of that fleet which are now ti-avcrs- 
ing every ocean first found its way across the 
Atlantic in 1819, and though few, if any, war 
vessels are now navigated by any other power 
than steam, I had the privilege, in 1825, of going 
on board the very steam frigate in the port of 
ilonti'eal with which the famous Dr. Lardner 
had demonstrated, by experiment in one of the 
English harbors, that it was impossible for such 
a frigate to cross the ocean. When I mention 
the discovery of electro-magnetism in 1844, I 
need not again remind you how manj' of the in- 
strumentalities on which the world now depends 
for the thrift and comfort of civilized life have 
had their origin within the period of living 
memory, and may be traced to the development 
of laws of science which had then been locked 
up and sealed from human intelligence, from 
the dawn of creation. In the light of facts like 



these it is not to be wondered at that it should 
have occurred to thoughtful and observing 
minds, that a new sphere had been opened for 
the training and education of young men who 
were to take uj) and apply these discoveries and 
improvements in science to purposes of praci.i- 
cal utilit}', and that schools were needetl to lit 
and prei)arc them for so important a work. 
To this Ave owe the Lawrence scientific school 
at Harvard, the Sheffield scientific school 
at Yale, the Chandler school at Dartmouth, 
the Van Rensellaer institute at Troy, and the 
Technological institute at Boston. And 
nobly have these institutions vindicated 
their claim to the confidence and gratitude of 
the country by the faithful work they have been 
doing in the cause of popular education. But 
large as were the provisions here made for scien- 
tific cultm-e; a large field was still left unoccu- 
pied. Hundreds of j'oung men were needed in 
places of trust and responsibilit}-, to fill which 
required on their part science as well as skill, 
and disciplined judgment as Avell as special 
knowledge. And hundreds of earnest and 
capable young men were eager to avail them- 
selves of a means and opportunity for training 
and fitting themselves to fill these places with 
ability and success. To many of them the places 
of master mechanics, engineers, overseers, and 
superintendents of machine shop?, bleacheries, 
and dye works, commanding as they do honor- 
able wages and the respect which is always 
associated with high trust and responsibility, 
were objects of commendable ambition, although 
not aspiring to the higher walks of chemistry or 
civil and mechanical engineering. And when, 
by that memorable act of liberality on the part 
of Mr. Boynton, the large accumulations of a 
life of industry and economy were committed to 
the charge of the two friends to whom he com- 
municated his desire to benefit the rising gener- 
ations, for all time, by founding here a school, 
they at once addressed themselves to devising a 
plan to meet this want in the heart of a great 
couutry, whose multiplied industrial pursuits 
marked it as a field peculiarly fitted for the in- 
teresting experiment in practical science. They 
sought guidance in perfecting the plan in 
the constitution of some of the schools of 
technology in France and Germany, and 
were encom-aged to persevere by the well- 
authenticated fact that artisans whose 
skill had been stimulated by the training gained 
in schools like these, were already outstripping 
the once boasted superiority of English work- 
men in the very fields of labor in which they 
had by a kind of common consent so long been 
the leaders. These gentlemen saw that what 



8 



was wanted was not more high schools or acad- 
emies, however desirable it might be that such 
as we had should be better than they now are. 
And they came to a conclusion, without any 
misgiving, that what oar young men most need- 
ed was an institution in which, after a proper 
course of training in other schools, a pupil 
might be successfully taught the elements and 
principles of applied science in the various de- 
partmenLs of industry, so far as those could be 
tarnxl to account in the actual business of life, 
and thus be put into possession of an education 
which should command lor them honorable and 
remunerative positions in the community. The 
plan met the approval of the donor, and no part 
of it Avas more cordially accepted than that its 
privileges were to be frc2. No fee for tuition 
was to stand between the poorest youjig man 
and success, if he would but make use of the 
means which were thus to be placed within his 
reach. 

Nor were they in designing such a school mis- 
taken in theu' estimate of Avhat the public want- 
ed. The plan at once became the nucleus of a 
most important institution, with an unlimited 
capacity of expansion. Mr. Washburn had 
long cherished an intention to do something to 
supply a want which he had felt so keenly in 
his early experience, in what became, in after 
years, such an eminent mechanical success, by 
providing for teaching young men the element- 
ary principles of mechanical science, Avithout 
the necessity of wasting time and energy in 
empirical experiments, and taking in, at a 
glance, how this scheme harmonized with his 
own, he came forward at once and contributed 
his noble benefaction to give completeness 
to the work. This is no time for eu- 
logy, but the names of these men, by their 
association with this school, have become 
matters of enduring history. Posterity will 
keep in grateful remembrance their unselfish 
dedication of the fruits of their life-long indus- 
try to the encouragement of the young and the 
advancement of the great interests of learning. 
They will be remembered, too, by the stimulus 
which their example has infused into the hearts 
of other noble benefactors, of whom, God 
grant, it may be long before delicacy to the 
living may justify our speaking of them in the 
terms which our feelings would dictate. Ic is 
enougli for the present occasion to remind you 
that the school they have founded is becoming, 
practically, one of the most useful and valuable 
educational institutions in our land and an 
earn-st of the rank which independent and in- 
telligent labor is, itself, to maintain in our 
country, if we would claim for her the dignity 



of a free, enlightened and i^rosperous republic. 

I have no time, nor is there any occasion, to 
speak in detail of the school and its work of in- 
struction. These are already befoi-e the public, 
and what we have witnessed here today gives 
us new and added assurance that its interests 
are in safe hands and its instruction in chaige 
of fit and competent teachers. Its friends may 
congratulate themselves that, starting as an ex- 
periment, it has in all things become such an 
accomplished success. 

I have but a few raorat'n'f left of the brief 
time allotted me, and can only add a single 
word to remind the past and present members 
of the school of what it has done and is doing 
for them. Nature has given to every healthy 
and intelligent young man a reserved capital 
which many a business man, when starting in 
life, might count as far more valuable than any 
amount of money he is able to borrow; and that 
capital is character and capacity to labor, if he 
only knows how and ^vhere he can safely invest 
them. If any one would learn how to turn these 
to the best account, lot him come up here and 
study how to apply his brain and muscle to 
some useful purpose, and he will find this capi- 
tal, for which he is indebted to a kind Provi- 
dence alone, ready invested for use, and sure to 
bring him a return of an honorable position, 
besides profit and independence. In these 
days of conflict of labor with capital, when 
men of skill thoughtlessly combine with 
those without skill in strikes to force np 
poor labor to a common standard with good, 
deranging business and bringing certain loss 
and discomfort to both parties, I am happy to 
tell you, young men, how you may strike suc- 
cessfully for higher wages and force j'our em- 
ployers to terms without the necessity of calling 
in a single other man to help you and without 
wasting an hour in doing it. Come here and 
perfect yourselves in the laws of science and 
learn skill in using them, and you have your 
employers in your power and almost at j'our 
own price. They cannot afford to do without 
you. Nothing is so much in demand in market 
as really skilled labor, and the more skill one 
has the more he is in demand and the higher 
price he may seciu'e. Let a man show himself 
a first-class chemist, a skillful builder, an in- 
genious machinist, or a safe and reliable en- 
gineer, and he will never have to combine with 
a body of inferior workmen in order to force 
employers to give him fair wages. Employers, 
on the contrary, will seek him, instead of his 
having to seek them, for the simple reason that 
between a good and poor workman the em- 
ployer cannot afford to hire the poor one. 



9 



And there is another thing which this school 
Is to do for its pupils. It will give them a re- 
spectable calling and profession and put into 
their hands the means of earning for themselves 
an honorable and independent liveliliood. It 
will give them the power and habit of 'tliiuking 
for themselves. They will be relieved from 
that vagabond kind of life to which so many un- 
fortunate men are reduced, of begging for some 
petty politici'.l office, lobbying the legislature, 
going into the credit mobilier business, or sell- 
ing their votes, because it is the only thing they 
know how to manufacture, or have for 
sale. AVe hope this school is yet in 
time to do something to bring back Mas- 
saclmsetts to her primitive condition of 



I sterling honor and independence, wlierc no 
' man was ashamed to work, and a man had 
1 rather earn money honestly by his own indus- 
I try than steal it, though he did it as under the 
color of an office, or voted it in the form of pay. 
(Applause.) To a young man of high motives 
and generous ambition the school opens a door 
to sure success. To its benefactors, living or 
dead, it will ever stand amidst tliese busy 
and beautiful surroundings a monument to 
their wise appreciation of the value and ex- 
cellence of intellectual culture. And coming 
generations will have cause to bless the fore- 
sight and sagacity of those who founded and 
built up on this spot our institute of industrial 
science, which is to be forever free. 



ADDRESS OF REV. DR. SWEETSER. 



The design of the founders of this school may 
be stated in few words — the promotion of the 
welfare of society, by extending the bene(its of 
education. But education has its parts and its 
specific ends. In the broad statement of if, it is 
developing and ti'aining the mind for its great- 
est strength, usefulness and enjoyment, in the 
exercise of its intrlloctual, moral and social 
capacities. Each division in the comprehensive 
whole should lend its aid to the benelicent re- 
sult, and thereby vindicate its worth. 

The chief elements of welfare are intelligence 
and virtue. Virtue is ever feeble and sickly 
without intelligence; and intelligence is mon- 
strous without virtue. Milton's Satan is a grand 
idealization of evil: intellect in its highest 
stretch, shorn of the glory of moral rectitude. 
Tliis is the climax of mental elevation without 
virtue. Barbarism is the degiadation and bar- 
renness of life without knowledge. Education 
is incomplete as it fails in either of these fun- 
damental elements. It is easy to see how edu- 
cation, in the true conception of it, is the devel- 
oping and conserving energy, a process of 
thought and an inspiration of benevolence, 
whereby the elevation of the race, in the 
strength and glory of manhood, is realized. 

If this is a just expression of the combined 
effec' of all the parts of education, we have a 
simple test by which to try the excellence of 
each department. Division is essential, but 
each cohort of the great army should be so 
marshalled and handled, as to harmonize with 
and promote the general movement. The wis- 
dom and benevolence of the founders of this 
school will appear, if their design within its 
elected range is found, in a fair degree, to fur- 
nish essential help. While they propose to gain 



a definite end by a distinct and limited course 
of study, it should be borne in mind, that no 
antagonism with other systems, no depreciation 
of other courses of study, is intended or im- 
plied. Kestrictod by severe necessities of time 
and cii'cumstances, there are many who can 
gain a great deal, if they cannot achieve every- 
thing. In our day the subjects of kno-.vledge 
are so numerous, and the means of gi-atiii cation 
so enlarged, that limitation is an inexorable 
necessity. Our colleges are expanding into 
universities. The lower schools are emrJating 
multifariousness, instead of simplicity. 

The variety, as well as extent, of culture, ren- 
ders selection as difficult as it is indispensable. 
Are we not in danger of being dazzled by the 
crowded brilliancy of the progi-amme, and so of 
missing the way by the very profusion of the 
lights? Is the young and unaccustomed eyo 
capable of bearing the distraction of the 
many colored jets which are burning in 
the field of vision? Are we not exposed to 
the same perplexity which the fisherman 
experienced who said when there was only 
one light-house to steer by, it was easy enough 
to run in, but now there are six or seven in 
sight, it is all a man can do in a dark night to 
get in at all? It was once thought that the 
Latin maxim, so well worn that every school 
boy knows it, "noii multa sed multuin," con- 
tained a fund of wisdom. Our tendencies are 
to the converse of the proposition, and to say 
not much, but many— not one subject mastered, 
but many attempted; not profoundness and 
completeness in few things, but a stinted knowl- 
edge of a multitude— and so, by the expanded 
range of the mind over various subjects, ex- 
changing solidity, depth and strength for super- 



10 



ficiality and diffuseness. I would not bethought 
to disparage a generous culture, nor to advocate 
a narrow basis in education. Our colleges and 
the old universities in England have done too 
much in enriching thought, extending science, 
cultivating eloquence, perfecting art, purifying 
and adorning literature, and in minstering to 
the elegancies and refinements of life, to allow 
for a moment a sentiment so ungracious. Long 
may the old foundations stand, and higher and 
higher may the superstructures rise in worth 
and beauty, for the honor and ennobling of 
humanity. However much we might desire 
that every scholar in this institute should enjoy 
the fullest opportunity of the most generous cul- 
tivation in literature, science and art, we are 
forced to admit that the founders of this school 
were right in the aim to give, in lieu of the 
■whole, so much as under the circumstances was 
practicable. Tlieir purpose briefly stated is 
this: to give that amount of instmction in the 
l^rinciples and applications of science, which 
will elevate the characters and increase the effi- 
ciency of that large and important class of our 
citizens who are carrying on the great produc- 
tive industries of the land. 

These are, in a sense, the wealth makers of 
the natiou. Wealth should be, as the word 
once imported, weal— welfare. It is partially so 
now. It would be more so if there could be 
established a more just proportion between 
moral and intellectual development. With all 
its monstrous perversions wealth is a good, a 
necessity. It is the fruit and measure of the 
incorporation of mind with matter. ISTo wealth 
is possible until material things come under the 
power Oi mind. A possession involves an ap- 
propriation; an appropriation implies a prin- 
ciple. Nature is full of the material of wealth. 
The material of wealth becomes wealth by the 
intervention of some act of an intelligent being. 
We call this act by the general name, labor. 
Wealth will then he in proportion to intelligent 
industry. Two of the maps in the published 
volumes of the ninth census give ocular and im- 
pressive evidence. In one of these maps a laige 
section of the country is almost black with 
illiterac}--, while another is luminous with knowl- 
edge. Turn to the second map, and the first 
section is blank with poverty, the second bril- 
liant in the golden hue of wealth. Labor is crea- 
tive, but all the more so as it is intelligent. It de- 
mands more labor to bui!d a pyramid than to 
build a ship. The pyramids of Egypt con- 
tribute no appreciable amount to the comfort or 
wealth of the land. How great is the worth 
and conveuicnce of the fleets of this nation? 
The Escurial is a wonder of architectm-al 



grandeur. It is besides a monument of the 
bigotry of the most exceptionally big- 
oted Phillip the Second. Estimating the labor 
at its cost, fifty millions of dollars, we have 
nearly the same amount which gave the Pacific 
railroad-to the commerce, the convenience and 
the friendly intercourse of the world. Labor 
alone does not determine values, but the kind 
of labor and its object. It is most productive 
when it involves thought and is the means to a 
useful end. Science is the result of that species 
of thought which defines and establishes the 
principles and fundamental truths of all knowl- 
edge. Piactical science applies the discovered 
principles to the uses of life. By reasoning upon 
phenomena, a law is discovered. This laAv is 
the key to an iniinite variety of problems. 
These problems are the objects of practical 
science, and by the progi-ess of science the world 
is flUed with an ever increasing number and 
variety of methods and contrivances, which 
ameliorate the condition and adorn the face of 
society. 

The progress of civilization is not due alone 
to the progress of science. The arts were culti- 
vated when science was unknown. By the 
slow steps of experiment practical results were 
established; men found out how to execute cer- 
tain purposes by repeated tentative efforts. 
They acquired ability and skill. This is art, in 
contrast with science; the ability to secure 
effects by the application of rules. The rules 
are the process of doing something determined 
by its having been done before. The rules of 
art which precede scientific formulae may be 
sound while their in'inciples are not understood. 

Vast temples were erected anterior toany de- 
monstration of the laws which enable a modern 
architect to calculate the security of astructure. 
The effort to sustain the ponderous dome of the 
St. Sophia, in Constantinople, in the reign of 
the Emperor Justinian, through ignorance of 
principles, was a conspicuous failure. Three 
times the dome fell in before stability was se- 
cured, and that at last was effected by such 
unsightly and ponderous contrivances as to lead 
the historian to say of it, "This oldest church 
of the world is an ugly, misshapen mass, more 
resembling an overgrown potter's kiln, sur- 
rounded with furnaces pierced and patched, 
than a magnificent temple." In later times, 
when mechanical science had demonsti-ated the 
principles of support and construction, the diffi- 
culties so insurmountable to the architects of 
the St. Sophia would have been overcome, and 
the grace and mnjesty of the building would 
not have been destioyed in the effort to give it 
strength. 



II 



11 



Art and science are mutually helpful. The 
safe results of experience become more intelli- 
gent by analysis and demonstration. The 
safety of working by a rule is established when 
tlie reason of it is known; and besides the 
breadth of application is extended by demon- 
strating the universality of a law. When Ar- 
chimedes discovered the law which determines 
the loss of weight sustained by a body immersed 
in water, he detected the principle which is ac- 
cepted by all modern writers on hydrostatics, 
and justified the statement of an English philos- 
opher, that he was "a man of stupendous sa- 
gacity who laid the first foundations of almost 
all the inventions in which our age glories." 
This was one of the earliest applications of 
mathematics to natural philosophy, and of all 
those methods by which mechanical science has 
reached its present vast proportions. 

It is not always understood why the learning 
which is so full of substantial practical fruit, 
stands for its foundation upon the mathemat- 
ics, which are proscribed as the driest and dull- 
est of all studies. There is a reason for this, in 
the nature and constitution of the material 
world. The clue to it appears in the sentiment 
attributed to both Hato and Aristotle. "God," 
say these ancient thinkers, "always geome 
trizes." The universe is not a hap-hazard con- 
course of atoms, luckily falling together in the 
marvelous beauty and harmony of its parts, the 
balance and equableness of its movements, and 
the measured energy of its tremendous forces. 
The world is a cosmos— an orderly arrange- 
ment, a profound contrivance, an intel- 
ligent design, in which every atom rests 
or moves, according to an imposed 
law. So impressed were the contemplative 
minds of these great philosophers who saw the 
order and felt the harmony, but from 
whom the regulating principle was hidden, 
that, by the irresistible force of speculative 
thought, they discarded the profane imputation 
of chance, and reverently ascribed the power to 
the unknown intelligence which pervades all 
nature. The universe involves a wisdom more 
glorious than itseK; a mind more vast than it; 
for it is finite, the Creator infinite. If we admit 
this, as I doubt not we all do, then it is but a 
just inference, a priori, that the best knowledge 
of nature is found in the knowledge of its in- 
herent laws; for, when we know the law, we 
know so much of the thought of God. When 
we go behind phenomena and seize the principle, 
we are entering the secret place of power. One 
assurance of this fact is seen in the audacity 
of science. For no sooner are these interior 
processes and springs laid open to view, and the 



law enunciated which matter obeys, but with 
impious haste the over-elated philosopher thrusts 
himself forward into the sacred domain of the 
Omnipotent, and sets up for a world-buihhsr. 

But, aside from this speculative vi(!w, there 
is a more obvious answer to our question. If 
God always geometrizes, if the world involves 
symmetry, proportion, order, then to understand 
the world of nature we must understand the 
laws of proportion, numbers and magnitudes. 
These are the elements of the mathematics. 
Arithmetic and geometry are the science of mnn- 
bers and magnitude; arithmetic and geomcitry 
are then the alphabet of nature. They are the 
signs by which we read and understand her pro- 
found mysteries and interpret her oracles. 

Lord Bacon having defined the pure mathe- 
matics as those sciences "which handle quanti- 
ties determinate, severed fi-om any axioms of nat- 
ural philosophy" and mixed, as considering 
" quantity determinate, as it is auxiliary and 
ine uent unto them," says, with his accustomed 
penetrationand almost prophetic foresight,) "For 
many parts of nature can neither be invented 
with suflficient subtilty, nor demonstrated with 
sufficient perspicuity, nor accommodated unto 
use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid 
of the mathematics." 

"Men do not sufficiently understand the excel- 
lent use of the pure mathematics, in that they 
do remedy and cure many defects in the wit 
and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too 
dull they sharpen it, if too wandering they fix 
it, if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. 
And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only 
make this prediction, that there cannot fail to 
be more kinds of them, as nature grows farther 
disclosed." 

Every department of natural philosophy il- 
lustrates these truths. The elements which 
unite to form a compound body are found to 
exist in that body in fixed and definite propor- 
tions. They will not unite in any other propor- 
tions. If diffe,rent substances contain the same 
elements, these elements are in some multiple 
of the same proportions. When a salt is held 
in solution, crystalization takes place upon 
evaporation, and the forms of the crystals are 
geometrical figures with mathematical exactness 
in the angles and edges. The laws of Kepler are 
all connected with the determination of the fact 
that the planetary orbits are ellipses having the 
sun in one of the foci. The third of these laws 
is, that the squares of the periodic times are in 
the same proportion as the cubes of the mean 
distances from the sun. This example gives a 
glance at the mechanism of the heavens, 
showing the absolute regulation of the position 



12 



dud movenierits of the piailets, accbrdihg to 
principles rigidly^ and mathematically exact. 
Kepler reached this conclusion by long and pain- 
ful efforts in reducing the numerous ahd extra- 
brdinary observations of TyCho, which upon 
ho previous hypothesis could be reconciled. 
The reconciliation was as perfect as a demon-* 
stration the moment the true geometry of the 
System was detected. Instantly order prevailed 
where perplexity had reigned. But what is 
Btill more remarkable is that this law can be 
shown mathematically to be a necessary conse- 
quence of the still simpler and universal law of 
gravitation— dixectly as the masses and inverse- 
ly as the squares of the distances. 

With these leading discoveries in science^ as- 
iTonomy, so long cultivated with the gi-eatest 
assiduity , and with so many triumphs in spite 
Of false theories^ was enfranchised from the 
dominion of error, and became the true inter- 
preter of the vast and wonderful in nature. The 
bond was determined which, as it werej made 
the universe a system. The force which holds 
Jupiter in its orbit and swings the pendulum of 
a clock is seen to be the same and subject to the 
same law. In one case we behold it without 
visible mechanism controlling the stately sweep 
of a huge body in space, in measui-ed velocity 
and determinate times ; in the other^ attached by 
skilful art to a ti-ain of wheels, enabling the 
hands on the dial to synchronise in their motion 
with the revolution of the earth on its axiS) and 
gi\'ing to astronomy one of its most valuable 
instruments. 

Such proofs of the existence of proportion, 
harmony and exact law are discoverable 
throughout the kingdom of nature^ 

In fact it would be necessary to exhibit all the i 
known conditions of the um'verse of matter to 
exliaust the demonstration, the upshot of which 
is, that the world is a contrivance; that its com- 
binations are rigidly fixed and adapted; that 
its motions follow settled laws; that its forces 
are weighed and balanced, and that the highest 
mathematical expressions are the exact indica- 
cations of what is in the frame^ structure, and 
phenomena of material things. It must be evi- 
dent from this very narrow statement, that the 
way into the knowledge of the laws of nature 
must be through mathematics, as evident as 
the fact that the possibility of subjecting nature 
in its forces and resources to our use, depends 
Upon our accurate knowledge of these laws. The 
phenomena can never satisfy the mind of man, 
any more than they can yield him what necessity 
always craves; Art is imitative. It Copies 
forms, reproduces appearances, follows the steps 
of experience; science is analytic^ penetrative. 



It puts its spfecitnen intb the crucible. It bieltS 
off the outside crust, and uncovers the secretj 
The vision of its penetralia is the investment of 
the mind with hew power, and it becomes 
constructive, inventive, productive. It is more 
thali the philbsOpher's stone or the elixir of life; 
It is science, waiting upon art and illuminating 
it, removing diflSculties out of its way, and 
shortening and makihg sure its processes, that 
is, advancing civilization. 

In confirmation, it is only necessary to men- 
tion the names of Newton and La Place, men 
whose powerful minds applied to the interpreta^ 
tion of natute the highest mathematical ahalya 
sis, and who achieved the honor of advancing 
science by strides such as only giant intellects 
can take; The great discoveries of Newton 
which resolved, as by the wand of a magician, 
the problems that had baffled the keenest search 
were in no sense magic. The history of human 
thought presents no more vivid dr exalting 
illustration of the power of mind, working upon 
previous knowledge, to project itself into unex- 
plored regions, and to bring new territory into 
the domain of science. His intellect was fur- 
nished with all that experiment had proved, and 
genius had suggested. Upon these he medi- 
tated with patient fixedness of purpose-. He ex- 
plains the way he made his discoveries in these 
words: "By always thinking imto them, I keep 
the subject constantly before me, and wait tiU 
the first daAvnings open slowlj^, little by little, 
into a full and clear light; If I have done the 
public any service in this way, it is due to noth* 
ing but industry and patient thought." 

For seventeen years he pursued his investiga- 
tion amid the alternatives of hope and dLsap- 
pointmenti Others, too, stndied and meditated, 
and at times caught glimpses of the truth, and 
the very image of it seemed to be hovering be- 
fore their eyes; But in 1682 Newton learned 
that a new and more exact measurement of a 
terrestrial degree had been made by Picard, in 
France; This enabled him to correct an impor- 
tant element in his calculations. He resumed 
the demonstration with the new data. His 
computations and the observations agreed ; and 
the great pi-oblem was resolved, and mankind 
received the knowledge of the principle of the 
celestial harmonies; The idea of accident in 
scientific discoveries obtains a large notoriety, 
much larger than it deserMss. It would be strange 
if there were not happy thoughts in favored mo- 
ments breaking in like Inspirations upon gifted 
minds. Intuitive glances, with almost prophetic 
anticipations, have caught sight of wonderful 
results, long before their verification. But ho\^ 
small a place these occupy in the absolute and 



II 



13 



CoiltroUihg kiiowlcdge df nature will appear to 
any reader of tlie history of science. Intense 
thinking, varied and patient experiment, per-" 
sistent courage under disappointments, firmness 
in the face of popular prejudice and contempt, an 
humble and sagacious appropriation and 
working up of all previously established laws 
and theories, these, and not accident, have led 
to the present raailifold masteries of man over 
the forces of nature. 

If you will consider for a moment any import 
tant aid which invention has given to the arts 
bf life, you will perceive how nearly true it is 
that no one man ever invented a completed 
machine. Who, for example, invented the 
steam engine ? 

Certainly the \\T)vk of no one brain, nor the 
persistent efforts of any one life time could have 
accomplished it. We often hear James Watt 
spoken of as the inventor of the steam engine. 
He was a remarkable man, a man of the true 
type, a genuine philosopher, though he was a 
mechanic. Before the Christian era men began 
to think about the pt»wer of steam, and all the 
thinking fOr centiu-ies seemed to be of little 
value. The first trials produced mere play* 
things. A ball danced in a jet of steam, as you 
have seen a ball dance in the jet Of a fountain. 
A wheel revolved backwai"tls by the reaction of 
escape steam from a series of armsi A great 
Space stretches between this and a fully 
equipped locomotive. But the fact of power 
was perceived— to use the power was thought 
Of— and many rude efforts had been made, and 
some very valuable ends obtained before Watt's 
day. I gpeak particularly of him, because he 
is a good illustration of the principle. He was 
a practical me'chanic, but his reputation does 
Hot rest upon the results of his mechanical 
sagacity. He vras a man of profound and 
patient thought. He vanquished difficulties by 
well studied experiments. He brought to his 
aid the spirit of a genuine philosophic method. 
He was deficient in early education, but was 
afterwards largely assisted by the intimate and 
cordial friendship and intercourse which he 
enjoyed with Dr. Black and other accomplisheil 
scientific scholars of his day, from whom he 
received, and to whom he imparted many im- 
portant suggestions and results-. 

The improvements made by him may be said 
to fix the date of the really valuable use of the 
steam engine. But to show how he stands re* 
lated to attainments before and since his time, 
it may be suffi-cient to state that in the older en- 
gines a bushel of coal furnished the force ade- 
quate to raise three million pounds one foot. 
Watt's engine would raise twenty milUons; and 



more recently engines are built which will, with 
the same fuel, raise one hundred million 
pounds or more* And yet it is true that from 
that period, with the exception of the analysis 
of the power of steam, which Watt did not 
reach, very inconsiderable advance has been 
made, otherwise than in the details and con- 
trivances by which the principles are applied. 

It will be found true. In whatever direction 
we turn our attention, that the essential of sub- 
stantial progress is profound thought. To know 
we must study. To do we must apply in prac- 
j tice the results of thought. Ordinarily, when a 
clear judgment and careful experiment has de- 
termined safe rules, the deductions of science 
! confirm the rules and render what was empirical 
I domonstrative» If it was true, which is doubt- 
ful, that Brunei caught the idea of the shield, 
which was the successful tool in excavating the 
Thames tunnel, from seeing a specimen 
of a testaceous worm which bores under 
water, this would not account for 
the contrivance. Sagacity, experimental 
and mechanical skill, must have been combined 
in producing an instrument capaple of annihi- 
lating the dangers and overcoming the difficul- 
ties of an undertalcing so adventurous in its 
conception and stupendous in its magnitude. 
When Robert Stephenson conceived the thought 
of the rectangular tube, the triumphant ele- 
ment in the tubular bridge, the problem was 
solved, and the masterpiece of construction in 
modern times became an accomplished fact. 
! How much did this one thought do? Very 
I much what the keystone of an arch does. For 
I as the arch has no sti'cngth without the binding 
I force of the Iveystone, and the keystone is an 
i impossible conception without the courses of the 
{ arch, so the success of the last happy sugges- 
} tion of Stephenson was an impossibility with- 
i out the previous experiments and demonstra- 
tions. The strength of tubes had been known 
from the time of Galileo. The power of the 
girder with its Upper and lower flange, united 
by a slight web, was matter of rigid mathe- 
matical calculation. One step only was left be- 
tween the girder and the tube — the uniting of 
two girders by the top and bottom flange. It 
is a simple and beautiful illustration how 
knowledge grows", how thought accumulates; 
how art, sagaoity and science go hand in hand; 
how in short, intelligence, and not accident, 
rtdes the great column of advancing civiliza- 
tion, and how patient study and endeavor 
bring in the beneficent hai-vest of comfort 
and wealth. No idea can be more pernicious 
in the mind of a young man of fertile resources 
than this, that invention is the fruit of unaided 



14 



genius; that to be an inventor is to go to work 
under the guide of fancy, and, following the 
bent of one's mind^ until some extraordinary- 
machine, Minerv'^a-like, shall come forth, f uU- 
formed, from the brain. 

I have said that labor is the germ of wealth, 
and that it is productive in proportion to the 
amount of intelligence involved in it. Nothing 
would be easier of demonstration, were the 
time allowed me. The wealth of Great Britain 
is proverbial. The process is a simple one. 
Great Britain by skilled labor has been convert • 
ing the almost worthless raw material into arti- 
cles of great value, not only for herself, but, to 
a great extent, for all the nations of the globe. 
The power of her machinery gave her the ascen- 
dancy over all the manufacturing peoples who 
followed the old handicrafts. She stopped in a 
few years all the looms in Turkey. She reduced 
the exportation of cloth from India from 200,- 
000,000 pounds per year to absolutely nothing. 
And very easily. For her steam-engines, driv- 
ing her constantly-improving and constantly- 
increasing machinery, were more than a match 
for all the hand power in the world. So long 
as twenty years ago her steam power was esti- 
mated to equal the labor of 600,000,000 men— 
that is, of more than the entire adult population 
of the globe. The coal to raise this steam was 
mined by 40,000 men. The engines driven by 
it were built by 35,000. So that the substitute 
for the muscular energy of the whole adult pop- 
ulation of the globe was provided by less than 
100,000 men. The result is not due to skill, for 
in that the oriental nations excelled; but to sci- 
ence addmg knowledge to skill, and augment- 
ing human power by bringing the forces of 
nature within human conti'ol. 

If it is true that intelligence gives value to 
labor, that thought, and not the law of material 
things, is urging the world onward in its career 
of elevation, we shall see the worth of such 
study as is proposed in this school. It is de- 
signed to make mechanics and engineers — 
thinking, intelligent workmen— not human ma- 
chines, who obey a rule automatically, as Bab- 
bage's difference engine computes tables — but 
men who not only know how to do what they 
attempt, but why they do it by the prescribed 
process. There is a method of labor which de- 
grades the laborer, and when the laborer is de- 
graded the yield of his toil is likely to be appro- 
priated to the luxury and insolence of the few, 
rather than to the comfort and well being of the 
many. There is a method of labor which digni- 
fies the laborer, because it is to him a develop- 
ment of his intellect, the exercise of that power 
of thought which is the distinguishing attribute 



of man. Our wide domain as a nation abounds 
in the material of wealth. Our natm-al re- 
sources exceed computation. The touch which 
transforms the mineral and the timber into gold 
is intelUgent labor. Our artisans must be artists, 
and our skilled mechanics philosophers — not in 
the invidious sense of being consciously wise 
above others, but in the true sense of knowing 
things m their reasons and principles. We 
must discard the idea of a genius which can dis- 
pense with study,or an inventiveness that waits 
upon good luck, instead of patient research and 
authenticated efforts. The countless precocious 
machinists who have spent their strength for 
nought have erected their monument in the 
piles of useless lumber that encumber the patent 
office. The real benefactors of mankind, who 
have contributed to the world's advancement, 
have wrought with profound diligence in the 
workshop of nature; have reverently studied 
her laws; have wisely adapted her forces to se- 
cure useful ends, have humbly forgotten them- 
selves in the presence of new truths, and have 
lived not to be, but to act, and to leave an en- 
larged and em-iched inheritance to posterity. 
It will be more than a coronet in the fame of 
Faraday, that for science and its advancement 
he deliberately tui-ned away from the inviting 
avenue to riches which opened before him, pre- 
ferring the low estate of poverty in the service 
of knowledge, to power, position and envious 
distinction in the service of wealth. I have 
said that intelligent labor is the source of 
wealth. But wealth is more worthless than the 
dust of the street, when it is sought as an end, 
and not as a means. Our country will have 
wealth. Our manufacturers, our merchants, 
our mechanics and our farmers will transmute 
the valueless raw material, so profusely laid up 
for us in every direction, into more than 
diamonds and ingots. But this will not save 
the nation from a destinv more frightful than 
any which now darkens the rolls of history. 
Our development, to be both safe and glorious, 
must be through the force of intelligence, and 
that intelligence must be penetrated, purified, 
and swayed by virtue. If our systems of ed- 
ucation fail to determine this, public ruin is 
only a question of time. 

Let me, then, in conclusion, remind the mem- 
bers of this school of one fact. Among all the 
organizations within the observation and skill 
of man, man himself is the most wonderful. 
He has a body exhibitmg a mechanism, which 
for its adaptations, its various and delicate or- 
gans, its manifold functions and uses, its union 
of compactness and grace, surpasses all known 
machines. Its moving force is the stiU hidden 



II 



15 



and mysterious prioclple of animal life. Its 
Action is determined and its energy regulated 
by a more mysterious principle, the soul^ the 
seat of thought, of will and of emotion, that by 
which mau knows and does, and chooses, by 
which he rises above the realm of material 
things, transcends all other animal life, that by 
which he is moral, accountable, immortal, and, 
in fact, in harmony with Deity. This soul, in 
i'ommon language, is the intellect and the heart, 
the elements which make men capable of knowl- 
<f4ge and capable of ^fxaimss, Vour studies 



have taught you that every machine, for Its suc- 
ceBsful operation, requires symmetry and 
proportion in the adjustment of the power to its 
various parts, and of the various parts to each 
other and to the end designed. Apply this rule 
to yourselves, to this wonderful organism, this 
microcosm, perfect in design, and vast in 
capacity, but liable to derangement through 
neglect. Cultivate both intellect and heart, 
knowledge and ^^^tue, and let these wait on 
benevolence, and you may well hope that life 
will Bot be ia vaiji. 



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